Last
week, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft CRM users had a few hours of
outage as the productivity suite experienced networking issues at a
North American data center. Service was restored in a few hours, and the
event hasn’t dissuaded small businesses from utilizing the cloud.
However, if you’re not cautious to use Microsoft’s productivity suite,
here are two others to choose from. Either may not have the brand name
recognition that Microsoft has, but both offer similar services to
Office 365.

HyperOffice

HyperOffice was one of the first company’s, if not the first, to offer cloud communication and collaboration software.
Founded in 1998, HyperOffice has 300,000 users, HyperOffice is
compatible with Mac and PC. However, the provider does have a lot of
flexibility in its productivity options and in its pricing model.

“From
the beginning, we’ve engineered around the cloud for the SMB market,”
said Farzin Arsanjani, President of HyperOffice. “Cloud delivery has
always been part of our design philosophy.”

HyperOffice features include business email, online calendar, task manager, document management,
contact management and dedicated online work spaces. Other features
include a mobile sync and cloud migration services. The user interface
is consistent among all those different features, so you don’t have to
open each on individually to use it. Also, HyperOffice has free support
for all users Monday through Friday 9:00am-8:00pm EST. Pricing ranges
from $45 a month to $1,500 a month, depending on the number of users you
have and whether or not you want the email feature. However, the
average cost for HyperOffice is $9 per user, per month.

TeamLab

TeamLab
is new to the software-as-a-service market, as the service just
celebrated its first anniversary. Currently, TeamLab does project
management, business collaboration, and document management, with email,
CRM and calendar features coming soon. In addition to SaaS, TeamLab
also has open-source and AMI solutions. Best of all, TeamLab is
completely free.

“The one-year anniversary is a good occasion to
analyze the first but already significant fruits of our work. The
increasing number of users is one of the most important indicators that
we are on the right track,” said project manager Antony Smirnov. “All
our enhancements including a new version of the Documents module with
the online editor introduced have been implemented as a result of a
constant dialogue with our customers. Needless to say that the project
would not have existed but for their attention and demand.”

Overall,
Microsoft 365 isn’t the only solution out there. You don’t necessarily
have to go with it just because it’s the newest one. Take the time to
look at other providers who offer similar options.